Madrid has been on our vacation list for years. Let’s face it, ALL places known to humanity are on our list, it’s just a question of priority. Based on feedback from friends, family, and our notoriously many-minded friend “the internet”, it has always fallen below other cities. Even within Spain we have excitedly visited several other areas before visiting the capital city. Savitri had actually been in Madrid once for work several years ago and hasn’t pushed for it. However.. pressure has been building.

We absolutely fell in love with Portugal in 2024, and danced around the mainland borders with Spain. If we ever live in Europe for a longer period of time we’d want to speak the language, and Portuguese is quite difficult to pick up. Spanish, on the other hand, is relatively easy (hopefully.. for me), Savitri is already fluent, and Ashok has a lot of experience as well. Spain also has a particularly good path to citizenship if it ever came to that. It’s also.. close to Portugal, France, and.. Africa!

During our nap time I did a little research for our walk, cross-referencing several “top sights”, “top sites”, and “most photographed” lists. I plotted ~20 of my favorites and identified a few possible loops we could take based on our energy and the weather. We headed out into 56˚F (listed as “feels like 62˚F”) on what had become a stunning blue-skied sunny day. We walked through the Parque del Retiro, filled with tourists, students, photographers, runners, weight lifters.. all sorts of activity.

The Crystal Palace is a conservatory built almost entirely of glass and cast iron. It’s undergoing some sort of maintenance so the bottom floor is draped in huge screens with murals printed on them. At first we thought that was the actual walls.. pretty cool cover-up.

Right next to Fuente de la Alcachofa is a beautiful artificial lake filled with ducks and geese. A monument to Alfonso XII is along the far side. A street performer played in the background while we were there.. what a beautiful scene.

We headed west from the park toward downtown. First step was to cross the big roundabout around Puerta de Alcala. This roundabout has 5-6 lanes around it with various restrictions. One is for bikes!! We saw a cyclist ride through and it looks peaceful at first but then the mob of cars & trucks followed, yikes!

We saw lots of these tiered metal planters as we walked.

So many spectacular old buildings..

As the sun got lower and lower in the sky, the colors of the city really explored all shades of red.

We made our way to Mirador de la Cornisa del Palacio Real, a vast overlook over the western side of the city. I love this picture of Savitri, and of the sky and street lamp. There sunset dancing along the black cast iron on the right was a special treat.

We worked our way back east, just enjoying the random bits of architecture and quiet alleys.

We got to Mercado de San Miguel, a modern gourmet food court that I believe is the inspiration for Time Out elsewhere in the world. It is filled with varied and creative food vendors! We tried several and loved them all!

Perhaps the most creative and unique was the first one we tried, Flores de Queso. They serve edible flowers made of shaved cheese, with drops of complementary extracts and sauces drizzled over them and filling the tiny edible cones. These are like nothing we’d ever tried, and as cheese lovers an eye-opening experience.

We didn’t eat any of these fish, but how cool are the pieces?!

Empanadas of every type!

Dumplings! We split 8 dumplings with different wrappers, fillings, and drizzles.

After a long day we met up with Steve and Jen and had some tasty tapas at the hotel. A lovely singer covered Amy Winehouse (among others) in the background and the wait staff was excellent. Ready for more tomorrow!

Overall I have to say that Madrid exceeded both ofd our expectations. Its reputation as more of a “business city” may well be earned, but it has a strong sense of style, culture, outdoorsy folks, and food. We definitely will visit again when we’re next in central Spain.